Publisher's Summary

Perfect home, perfect family, perfect murder....

Doctor Jeffrey Logan, daytime TV's most loved psychologist, has a top-rating talk show seen around the world – and his picture-perfect life is completed by his talented lawyer wife, Stephanie Tyler, their 16-year-old daughter Chelsea, and 13-year-old J. T. But this image of domestic bliss is shattered when Stephanie is killed instantly by a bullet from a big-game rifle in the family's pristine Beacon Hill kitchen. The consequences of her death are catastrophic as Doctor Jeff confesses, despite all the evidence pointing decidedly towards his blood-spattered son.

Now Boston criminal defense attorney David Cavanaugh faces his most gruelling case to date, as fate steps in to see him appointed to represent the man charged with murdering his old law-school friend. Cavanaugh soon realizes that this family has a dark secret, but it may not be the one the popular Doctor Jeff insists on revealing to the world.

With the Logan children unwilling to reveal what really happened, and Doctor Jeff always one step ahead of his defense team, Cavanaugh must race to uncover the truth, before more lives, including those closest to him, are lost.

Story

not as good as I thought it would be

The voices for both female and male are the same. The reader tries tooooooooooooooo hard to be the other sex. It would be better if he didn't try so hard. Sounds much too forced. It's always a problem when a man tries to sound like a woman or a woman tries too hard to sound like a man. I am disappointed with this and tried to hold on to just the story but it is VERY hard to do so. Wish the reader could just be more honest in his voices as it distracts from the story line to such a degree and I had a hard time listening. This may be a good story, but the author really needs to consider with greater thought the voice who is presenting the story.

Disappointing - dont bother

The overall plot in this book is an interesting scenario. However the execution of the plot is appallingly bad. Many of us aspire to write a novel and I try to cut authors a bit of slack because they have got out there and done it - and because many of them improve along the way. What is difficult to overlook is an author who has been slack. This story has been ruined by an author who has not taken the time and effort to review the material and remove material which is wholly implausible. I regard this as a very poorly written and researched novel. The story is so implausible, relying on huge leaps of faith. I expect most readers would be disapointed and give up long before I did. Be interested to see if Sydney Bauer improves with his next effort.

This one is a dud

I like Sydney Bauer's work, and have enjoyed several of his titles, but this one is a big disappointment. The plot is unbelievable, and the behavior of the lead character incomprehensible. For a character which the Author thinks worthy enough to feature in several tales, it's a pity he doesn't allow him to learn from the stupid mistakes he makes, and makes again. Frequent repetition of crass stupidity becomes irritating. I hope Mr Bauer can do better with him next time.

Good thriller, unrealistic American phraseology

I really liked this thriller, despite the distracting names of some of the characters, such as Joe Mannix (old TV show character). The main distraction was that the author must have been British trying to affect American dialogue for the characters. Consequently you get Americans talking about "ringing someone" when we would say "call", "shall" was used waaay more than these people would ever use it, "mates" was used awkwarkly rather than friends, disliked theories were dismissed as "drivel" (not since the 50s here), characters described as "having none of it" when they rejected an idea, and "you see" ending too many dialogues, in that Miss Marple manner. Americans just don't use that phraseology, especially the characters in this convoluted, but very intriguing plot that just keeps twisting. Not enough character development on the "good guys", while a lot was spent on the "Ted Bundy/Dr. Phil" psychopath--or as they termed him "charasmatic psychopath". Even that didn't seem to fit, as the psychopath was never shown in any charasmatic light, only evil. The poor Sarah, had absolutely no character development, as was most often referred to as "the pregnant Sarah", the evil ADA was too evil, the hero lawyer was too shallow but heroic, the Boston cop too rough--all seemingly trying to create characters that were stereotypical of old American television series; maybe hence Joe Mannix? Even so; the twisted plot was intriguing, and it did hold my interest. It was quite a good story, frighteningly so; and would have been better with better character development and realistic American phraseology.

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Overall

5 out of 5 stars

Performance

5 out of 5 stars

Story

5 out of 5 stars

Valle

07-21-15

Sydney Bauer where are you?

Brilliant storyline. Exciting and full of suspense. I have now read all the Sydney Bauer books available from Audible and they are so good I wish there were more.